Sherlock Biosciences donations received

This is an online portal with information on donations that were announced publicly (or have been shared with permission) that were of interest to Vipul Naik. The git repository with the code for this portal, as well as all the underlying data, is available on GitHub. All payment amounts are in current United States dollars (USD). The repository of donations is being seeded with an initial collation by Issa Rice as well as continued contributions from him (see his commits and the contract work page listing all financially compensated contributions to the site) but all responsibility for errors and inaccuracies belongs to Vipul Naik. Current data is preliminary and has not been completely vetted and normalized; if sharing a link to this site or any page on this site, please include the caveat that the data is preliminary (if you want to share without including caveats, please check with Vipul Naik). We expect to have completed the first round of development by the end of July 2024. See the about page for more details. Also of interest: pageview data on analytics.vipulnaik.com, tutorial in README, request for feedback to EA Forum.

Table of contents

Basic donee information

We do not have any donee information for the donee Sherlock Biosciences in our system.

Donee donation statistics

Cause areaCountMedianMeanMinimum10th percentile 20th percentile 30th percentile 40th percentile 50th percentile 60th percentile 70th percentile 80th percentile 90th percentile Maximum
Overall 2 2,000,000 9,750,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 17,500,000 17,500,000 17,500,000 17,500,000 17,500,000
Biosecurity and pandemic preparedness 1 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000 2,000,000
Scientific research 1 17,500,000 17,500,000 17,500,000 17,500,000 17,500,000 17,500,000 17,500,000 17,500,000 17,500,000 17,500,000 17,500,000 17,500,000 17,500,000

Donation amounts by donor and year for donee Sherlock Biosciences

Donor Total 2022 2019
Open Philanthropy (filter this donee) 17,500,000.00 0.00 17,500,000.00
FTX Future Fund (filter this donee) 2,000,000.00 2,000,000.00 0.00
Total 19,500,000.00 2,000,000.00 17,500,000.00

Full list of documents in reverse chronological order (3 documents)

Title (URL linked)Publication dateAuthorPublisherAffected donorsAffected doneesAffected influencersDocument scopeCause areaNotes
How Philanthropists are Tackling COVID-192020-03-18Abby Schultz Barron'sOpen Philanthropy Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Wellcome Trust Mastercard Impact Fund Schmidt Futures COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator Sherlock Biosciences Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security University of Washington (Institute for Protein Design) Review of current state of cause areaBiosecurity and pandemic preparednessThe article describes how private philanthropy is helping in the fight against COVID-19 and the coronavirus pandemic caused by it. The role of Open Philanthropy Project in funding Sherlock Biosciences as well as the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in prior years is described. The article also describes the joint financing of the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator by the Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and Mastercard Impact Fund.
Explaining Our Bet on Sherlock Biosciences’ Innovations in Viral Diagnostics2019-06-10Heather Youngs Chris Somerville Open PhilanthropyOpen Philanthropy Sherlock Biosciences Single donation documentationScientific researchIn this new-style blog post, the reasons for the Open Philanthropy Project grant https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/scientific-research/miscellaneous/sherlock-biosciences-research-viral-diagnostics to Sherlock Biosciences are explained in a conversational style. The conversation participants include Michael Levine (Communications Officer) and the grant investigators Chris Somerville and Heather Youngs.
With Launch Of New CRISPR Company, Competition Extends To Diagnostics2019-03-21Ellie Kincaid ForbesOpen Philanthropy Sherlock Biosciences LaunchScientific researchThe article describes the launch of Sherlock Biosciences, a company that aims to use CRISPR technology for diagnostics. It mentions the $17.5 million donation https://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/scientific-research/miscellaneous/sherlock-biosciences-research-viral-diagnostics plus undisclosed investment from the Open Philanthropy Project, as well as separate investment. Together, Sherlock Biosciences has raised $35 million.

Full list of donations in reverse chronological order (2 donations)

Graph of top 10 donors (for donations with known year of donation) by amount, showing the timeframe of donations

Graph of donations and their timeframes
DonorAmount (current USD)Amount rank (out of 2)Donation dateCause areaURLInfluencerNotes
FTX Future Fund2,000,000.0022022-02Biosecurity and pandemic preparednesshttps://ftxfuturefund.org/our-grants/?_funding_stream=ad-hoc-- Donation process: This investment is part of staff-led grantmaking by FTX Future Fund. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/paMYXYFYbbjpdjgbt/future-fund-june-2022-update#Staff_led_grantmaking_in_more_detail (GW, IR) says: "Unlike the open call and regranting, these grants and investments are not a test of a particular potentially highly scalable funding model. These are projects we funded because we became aware of them and thought they were good ideas."

Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant to "support the development of universal CRISPR-based diagnostics, including paper-based diagnostics that can be used in developing-country settings without electricity."
Open Philanthropy17,500,000.0012019-01Scientific research/Biosecurity and pandemic preparednesshttps://www.openphilanthropy.org/focus/scientific-research/miscellaneous/sherlock-biosciences-research-viral-diagnosticsChris Somerville Heather Youngs Donation process: The Open Philanthropy Project's scientific advisors Chris Somerville and Heather Youngs were hopeful about viral diagnostics after hearing of research coming out of Feng Zhang's lab (Zhang would later co-found Sherlock Biosciences). When they ran into David Walt, they asked him if his new company (Sherlock Biosciences) would be interested in developing a viral diagnostic, and after consulting with his team, he said they would. This started the process of vetting Sherlock Biosciences for the grant

Intended use of funds (category): Direct project expenses

Intended use of funds: Grant to support the development of a diagnostic platform to identify any virus present in a patient sample.

Donor reason for selecting the donee: Chris Somerville and Heather Youngs have been interested in viral diagnostics because development of this technology could both reduce threats from viral pandemics and also benefit health care broadly. The selection of Sherlock Biosciences was because of their team and technology, which made it plausible that they could develop this technology

Other notes: The Open Philanthropy Project also recommended an additional investment in Sherlock Biosciences. Sherlock recently spun out of Harvard University’s Wyss Institute and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The launch of Sherlock Biosciences, and the funding by the Open Philanthropy Project, are discussed in Forbes at https://www.forbes.com/sites/elliekincaid/2019/03/21/with-launch-of-new-crispr-company-competition-extends-to-diagnostics/ More background explanation related to the grant is in the conversation blog post https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/explaining-our-bet-sherlock-biosciences-innovations-viral-diagnostics. Intended funding timeframe in months: 60; announced: 2019-03-21.